


Be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade

by twelve_pastels



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Author Can't Write Porn, Author Does No Research, Author Has A Mental Affliction, Knotting, M/M, Pretentious Prose is Pretentious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:35:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twelve_pastels/pseuds/twelve_pastels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are very few things for which Erik is grateful. His life, his powers, the will and ability to see Shaw dead. A night in the sea with a voice in his head, and blue eyes at the surface of the water, and the words <i>You are not alone.</i></p><p>Primarily, however, he is deeply and profoundly grateful for not going through his first heat until he was out of the camps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade

**Author's Note:**

> And Lo! My Muse woke from her six year slumber. I ran to embrace her, and she did say "Okay, yeah, get the fuck off me. Now what's this I hear about knotting, and why haven't we written any?" And I did accede to her demands.
> 
> I seem to be trying to apply every trope from SPN to XM:FC. The disturbing thing is that it seems to be working.
> 
> Beta’d by the lovely and sweet-smelling [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=eudaimonia_ish)[**eudaimonia_ish**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=eudaimonia_ish) .

  
_They give you fever, when you kiss them,  
Fever, if you live and learn,  
Fever! ‘Til you sizzle –  
What a lovely way to burn.  
~ Peggy Lee_

  
***

There are very few things for which Erik is grateful. His life, his powers, the will and ability to see Shaw dead. A night in the sea with a voice in his head, and blue eyes at the surface of the water, and the words _You are not alone._

Primarily, however, he is deeply and profoundly grateful for not going through his first heat until he was out of the camps.

He saw what Shaw and the other scientists did to every Omega they could find, and some of the Betas too. The experiments, injecting pregnant Omegas, male and female alike, with various substances to see if they could make an Alpha in the womb.

Erik was so thin and undernourished that he didn’t have his first heat until he was nineteen and at a hospital in England for recovery from the horrors of war. The nurse on duty that day had also been an Omega, thankfully; he’d let her bring him medication and stroke his hair and his back while he whimpered and shivered through the whole ordeal. If she’d been an Alpha, he’d probably have tried to kill her out of sheer terror.

Years on, he still holes up somewhere every so often, going off the medication and shaking through the awful fever just to make sure that he still can. Even when he’s out in public and he knows that he’s pumping out pheromones that can’t be suppressed by the strongest drugs, he manages to project such an aura of menace that every Alpha he’s met has managed to convince themselves, conveniently, that they smell an Omega on the other side of the room, or that in some cases they don’t smell one at all.

He’d be the last one to admit it, but Erik does have a quiet, shameful fantasy of one day being able to have a family, children, maybe even a mate. That seems damnably unlikely, though, seeing as he’s never met an Alpha who he’d let get within an arm’s reach of him.

That is, of course, until the most unlikely Alpha on the face of the planet threw himself off of a boat just to tell Erik that he was not alone.

***

Shaw knew. Shaw caught the scent, and knew, and he laughed, and it was only interference from the diamond telepath girl that kept Erik from suffering the same fate as so many of his fellow Omegas in the camps. He was pretty sure she knew it, too; her mind reached out to his as she pushed him, a whisper of _you got away, so stay away_ that came as a complete surprise.

The worst part about hearing her say that was that she was an Alpha herself.

It wasn’t enough to calm his rage, though, latching himself to the submarine even after exhausting himself with the anchor. Out of nowhere, arms wrapped around him under the water, and a voice shouted at him in his head, a voice to which Erik immediately wanted to submit which of course made him fight all the harder.

 _Please, Erik. Calm your mind. You’ll drown. I won’t order you, never, but please._

They popped to the surface together, entwined, Erik shouting and struggling until he put some distance between them and was able to get a good look at his rescuer, and an inadvertent scent.

This man, Charles, was beautiful, with a face that would have made a vain Omega weep with envy. His long hair was slicked back thanks to his impromptu swim, showing off eyes as blue as Erik’s, fair skin, and an almost unnaturally red mouth. More than that, his scent was so heavy that even the salt water couldn’t mask it.

He was, quite frankly, one of the strongest Alphas that Erik had ever scented, and he’d jumped in the water to save him, and was looking at Erik with a combination of astonishment and joy and no trace of fear whatsoever.

Erik was wet, and cold, and had lost Shaw, and had had the one secret that he kept as close as possible revealed to his worst enemy. Despite all that, the rage bled out of him as the Alpha introduced himself – Charles Xavier – and told Erik, quite explicitly and clearly, “You’re not alone.”

It made no sense. None of it made any sense: strangers wouldn’t perform such a great service, people didn’t save lives, and Alphas most certainly didn’t go to these lengths over unbonded, unknotted Omegas. And yet this man, this lovely man who had leapt into the sea after him, floated there speaking in his mind and smiling at him as if he, Erik, were the best and most wonderful thing to ever, ever happen. This Alpha smiled at him as though Erik were the sun after a year of rain, and Erik felt fear, and doubt, and just enough hope to keep him from swimming away as fast as he could.

***

The CIA facility was as bland as anything he’d ever stayed in in Israel, but Erik felt immediately more at home. Not simply because of the presence of other mutants like him, but, though he was loathe to admit it, because of Charles constantly turning towards him like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

It was damn odd behavior for an Alpha, in his experience. Raven, the pretty Beta who called herself Charles’s sister, seemed to know something Erik didn’t and thought the whole thing hysterically funny.

“Seriously, he’s so gone on you that I’d tease him about it if I didn’t think he’d have a rage spasm and short out his brain or something,” she told him one evening in the living area while Charles had “a quiet word” with some of the soldiers who’d taken the presence of an Omega as a liberty to make off-color offers.

“I haven’t the faintest idea where you might have gotten that notion”, Erik replied to her, without taking his eyes off of her brother. Charles was standing, smiling gently, in front of several very large soldiers, all of them Alphas, who were looking steadily more nervous as he spoke.

Raven gestured. “Look at them. He’s, like, a foot smaller and sixty pounds lighter than all of them, without exception. Even if he was a walking armory, which he isn’t, especially not in that suit,” Erik snorted with laughter at her comment, “there’s no reason why they shouldn’t hesitate to pound him into a greasy smear on the floor.”

“So why aren’t they?”

Raven smirked. “Take a deep breath.”

This was something Erik usually avoided around Alphas, and when near one to whom he was attracted – the results could be disastrous. All the same, he followed Raven’s advice and inhaled slowly, taking in the scent of the room and the pheromones being put out by its occupants.

It hit him like a blow, the power of what Charles was putting off – he’d thought he’d imagined it, that night in the ocean, but apparently he hadn’t, because Charles couldn’t have been radiating dominance any harder if he’d had blood on his teeth, and wasn’t that a pretty thought?

More than that, the scent wasn’t just an Alpha being territorial. It screamed I Saw Him First, So Hands Off in a way that informed any other Alpha present that even thinking of touching Erik would be grounds for Charles to do something very, very painful to them. And that Charles would enjoy every second of it.

Raven took one look at his face, patted him on the shoulder, and walked off as though her point had been made. Erik was unbelievably confused.

Being wanted when he was in heat was one thing, but his next one was months away and nobody had ever, ever acted like this around him, even when he was off the suppressants. This was what Alphas acted like when they were seriously looking for a mate, and that simply didn’t click.

Erik was hardly anybody’s first choice for an Omega. Too tall, unnaturally aggressive, not willing to submit anything to anybody, certainly not acceptable parent material.

“-so I merely made the suggestion to them that they might wish to consider themselves gentlemen when interacting with us and our recruits, due to a number of factors including-”

Charles had finished terrifying the soldiers and had evidently been talking to Erik for a few minutes, though he’d caught only a part of the conversation. His expression must have looked vacant, because the other man’s gaze sharpened and grew concerned. “Erik? My friend, are you well?” He brushed his fingertips against Erik’s bare wrist, something he would normally not allow from anyone.

All of a sudden, his mind was filled with a cacophony:

 _-doesn’t think he’s attractive at all, why, look at him, brilliant and powerful, strong jaw and beautiful eyes and elegant hands and a cock as big as any Alpha’s, perfect, an equal, never thought I’d find one-_

Erik shook his head, the thoughts skittering through his mind before they were suddenly yanked away. Charles’s shoulders tightened and he turned his face away, his lips thinned. “Forgive me. I haven’t projected like that in years, I don’t know what came over me.”

Erik didn’t have a reply. He couldn’t think, couldn’t process what he’d seen and heard and felt, and all he could say was “You’re a fool. You know nothing about me.”

Charles smiled, a gentle expression, and ran his hand down Erik’s throat, lightly, but without any give. Erik shuddered and tipped his head back involuntarily.

“My friend, I know everything about you.”

***

The house in Westchester had one major advantage over the CIA base, and that was Erik having a whole wing to himself with lots and lots of locking doors. It was time to go off the medication for a while, again. Alex wouldn’t be a problem – the younger Alpha was as scared of Erik as he was attracted to him, and besides, Hank seemed more receptive – but Erik didn’t trust his self-control around Charles during a heat. Not one bit.

It slammed into him one day in late August, waking up and feeling that familiar burn just beginning under his skin. Erik rolled onto his belly in the unfamiliarly soft bed and bit back a curse, sinking his teeth into the edge of his pillow. He had things to take care of that day, with Charles and the children; he could beg off early and lock himself away come sundown, but not before then.

Nothing for it. He had to go downstairs.

Getting washed and dressed was an agony, every brush of fingers or cloth leaving his skin hypersensitive. He did a perfunctory check in the shower with the same medical precision and detachment he always used in this situation. Some arousal always bled through, but pleasure was as easy to detach from as pain, once you got used to doing it.

Today, however, running his fingers over swollen tissues in his body and kneading his perineum to examine the lubrication glands inside him produced a sharp spike of arousal that had him gasping, his knees going weak. His nipples were incredibly tight, his cock hard against his stomach, and it was going to take every single ounce of Erik’s control just to bloody well get through breakfast.

Any efforts at clothing were limited to a pair of trousers and a soft black polo shirt that he found at the bottom of his drawers, enough to make him presentable for a summer day where he didn’t have to leave the house. Anything more, in fact, would have been a torment.

When Erik walked into the dining room for breakfast, reactions varied. Hank, who he’d passed in the hall, had stepped close enough to mutter that if Erik felt the need, the doors on the lab were steel and very, very hard to get through even without a metallokinetic holding them shut. Sean and Raven, as Betas, were only peripherally aware of the cloud of pheromones rolling off of him, just enough to make them nervous. Alex’s head shot up and he inhaled deeply, a speculative gleam in his eyes, but that look faded into one of sheer terror when he looked Erik in the face, and he fled the room with a rapid patter of “Sorrysorrysorry, havetogohelpHank, didn’tmeanit, haveagoodday, BYEPROFESSOR.”

Charles didn’t even look up from his newspaper, a coddled egg innocently cooling in its porcelain cup in front of him, but he did sit very, very still as Erik took his place at the foot of the table.

Much of the whole day was like that.

For Erik, it was close to torture, not only the ache of the heat running through his veins, but knowing exactly where Charles was every second of the day. He could sense Alex, too, but the typical arousal oozing off of him also held a sharp spike of fear, and he’d holed up in the practice room for the day. Erik admired his restraint, and hoped for his and Hank’s sake that he’d head to the lab this evening and stop the ridiculous dance the two of them were doing around each other.

Charles, though, that was the worst part. He smelled _good,_ like iron and balsam and moss and copper in the sun, and the heat and humidity only served to carry it all the farther.

They’d all had supper early, it being nearly too hot to eat, and Alex and Hank had not even bothered showing up for the meal. The pheromones made everyone jumpy. The evening chess game that Erik always shared with Charles was just as bad, not even the liquor helping him to calm down.

As distracted as Erik was, Charles seemed to be on another planet entirely. He made amateur mistakes on the board, dithered with his moves, and even entirely forgot that it was his turn twice in a row.

Erik tapped a finger on the table between them, and Charles jumped. “My friend, you seem to be rather off your game tonight.”

Charles uncharacteristically gritted his teeth and spoke in something akin to a growl. “Forgive my lack of usual concentration, Erik, but you must be aware that you are being _very_ distracting this evening, and it is taking considerable effort to give you the semblance of normality which you have sought today.”

Fury ripped through him, and Erik stood so abruptly that the chair skittered away from him and fell on its back in an evening sunbeam coming in through one of the study’s windows. Damn him, damn him for being just another Alpha, panting over the nearest Omega in heat, damn him for making Erik hope, making him want more.

He leaned over the table, hands on either side, exuding as much menace as he could, hoping it would offset the pheromones that his traitorous body still insisted on pumping out, even more so in Charles’ presence ( _the sign of an acceptable mate,_ he carefully didn’t think). Violence wasn’t his intent, but it was there, right beneath the surface, right alongside a bitter disappointment that he couldn’t help broadcasting.

Charles was looking up at him, eyes very wide and nostrils flared, and Erik got a sudden glimpse of himself as seen through another’s eyes. Tall, proud, beautiful, untrusting of anybody but deserving of so much.

 _-and the tragedy of it, look at him, going off to lock himself away through his heat while you pace and whine outside the door, begging to be let in like a dog from the rain, but you can’t leave because just catching the scent of his need is the sweetest torment and most unholy ecstasy you’ll ever know, but don’t push him, don’t push him, let him come to you. Let him come._

Erik closed his eyes against the onslaught of images and emotions, panting hard. When he opened his eyes, Charles was on his feet and pacing on the other side of the chessboard, wary and wanting, desperate for Erik but terrified that he’d be told no.

Erik breathed deeply and swallowed, a mistake; the pheromones were thick enough to choke on, and forced a noise from him that caused Charles to stop pacing and grip the back of his chair, breathing heavily.

Charles remained perfectly still, his white knuckles belying his tension, and waited for Erik to choose. That one piece of knowledge was enough to calm him, and let him do the only thing he’d ever really wanted; make the choice for himself.

Erik didn’t speak, just reached out his hand. Charles breathed out, smiled, and took it, and they walked upstairs in silence, not worried about controlling their bodies now that the promise of fulfillment was so close, and their minds were already halfway melted into each other like bayberry candles in a long, hot summer.

They almost didn’t make it up the stairs.

***

The sunlight poured in and across and around them. Erik blinked himself awake, twitching with aches and the pleasant sensation of a fire banked, rather than roaring out of control.

Everything after getting through the doors of his room last night was a blur, bits and pieces sticking out; Erik whining with his hands buried in Charles’ hair, Charles gasping between kisses about how badly he wanted him, how he’d felt and even scented him from there on the ship that night and couldn’t let him get away, how perfect they were for each other, equals, how good they’d be together.

He remembered ripping his clothes off, beyond caring about the scars strewn across his skin or any other imperfections, not with Charles projecting love and comfort and respect and a deep pulse of desire with every ounce of his power, making sure that there were no misunderstandings between them.

And of course he remembers actually getting to the sex.

Charles, above him, hands stroking across his skin as Erik bent the bed frame into something he could hold on to; Charles running his fingers across Erik’s hole, gasping at how wet he was, astonished at the other man’s level of desire (as if Erik could possibly not want him, as if Erik could ever want anybody else). Charles pushing into his body and staying there, knotting, the first time for both of them, and Charles peeling down every single one of his shields and laying his mind bare for Erik to sink in, both of them forgetting where one started and the other ended, staying tied mind to mind long after Charles’ knot had gone down and they’d slumped aside together on the bed.

Erik’s head ached, his ass hurt, and every muscle was screaming from overexertion, and he’d never felt this sated, physically or otherwise.

He turned and looked at his bed partner – no, mate now, quite firmly so – and felt a rather silly grin creep across his face. Charles’ hair was an utter bird’s nest, he had bruises from where Erik had grabbed him, and he was lying on his back and snoring in a decidedly unromantic fashion.

Erik could absolutely see having a family with this man, after Shaw was killed in a suitably bloody and dramatic manner.

He brushed against Charles’s mind through the bond they’d forged last night, and the telepath twitched and snorted, rolling on his side, blue eyes reluctantly opening against the warm light of a morning in late summer. “My dear, it is disgustingly early for you to be awake after last night’s activities.”

Erik laughed, his face stretching into the grin that Alex called sharklike but (he knew now) gave Charles a low pulse of pleasure whenever he saw it, like a rare treasure. “Perhaps I was feeling somewhat recovered, and interested in another round. Did that occur to you?”

“Actually I’ve rather been thinking I’d like to have you fuck me sometime.” Charles said this casually, and Erik choked on his own breath, rolling over on top of him to look down at his lover’s face, eyes wide.

Charles looked up at him with a complete lack of guile. “Well, you do have a gorgeous cock, and it seems a shame that I shouldn’t get to get fucked with it just because I’m an Alpha.”

Erik arched an eyebrow. “From what I always knew, no Alpha would be willing to give themselves up like that. Shouldn’t I be going out to find someone else to fuck if I wanted to do that?”

Erik very abruptly found himself on his back, pinned by his own powers channeled through another (and how interesting to find that could be done!), Charles nose to nose with him, face blank but eyes sparking with rage and jealousy. “You shall be doing no such thing.”

It was neither a request nor an order, merely a statement of fact. A new reality.  
Erik stretched luxuriously, practically purring. “As you wish, dearest.”

(He remembered that promise, all through the rest of the summer and into the deep autumn, sunny mornings leading to cool nights, huddled for warmth. He remembered it on a beach in Cuba, ripping missiles apart in midair and letting them fall into the sea in disgust at the hatred of ignorant men against their betters. He remembered it when he made the choice not to kill them all to make a point, and left a dead man’s amour wrapped around his corpse for the sea to claim, rather than claiming it himself.

It was the only promise he ever made that involved life instead of death.)


End file.
